


Christmas in the Mesozoic

by dear_tiger



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 10:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_tiger/pseuds/dear_tiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as a gift for quickreaver. Sam, Dean and the Four Dinosaurs of Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas in the Mesozoic

The lilac diplodocus has a solemn expression on its long face, like a priest or a doctor. It shakes its head. Its eyes are pools of sorrow. “No. I’m afraid that this one is a goner, gentlemen.” 

The other dinosaurs sigh and shuffle their feet. Sam can feel the thunder of their footsteps through the bed as vibrations travel from the floor. It’s a miniature earthquake when they shuffle their feet. 

“So,” says the violently green velociraptor perched on the headboard of Sam’s bed. Sam shifts his head on the pillow to keep an eye on the thing that sits over him and licks its lips. “So, may I eat him then? If he’s no more of use to anyone here?”

The dinosaurs murmur, and it goes on and on. Sam just wants to put his hands over his ears.

The yellow pterodactyl with a toothy beak and hungry eyes is the most kindhearted thing in the group. Sam has learned it by now. It clicks its beak to draw attention of the animals crowded over Sam’s bed. “I don’t think we should just yet,” it says. “This one might live until the morning.”

The velociraptor bounces up and down at the head of the bed. “What good is he to anyone in the morning? I can smell his liver rotting.”

Sam’s liver isn’t rotting. He thinks he would’ve noticed if it was. What would happen, he wonders, if he just…. Without getting up, Sam reaches his arm and smacks the velociraptor off the headboard. The resulting thump and squeak are very satisfying.

“What are you doing?” says Dean’s voice from the general direction of the motel room’s kitchen.

“Nothing. Just stretching.”

“Who’s he talking to?” says the diplodocus.

Sam doesn’t know what to call the red thing at the foot of his bed, only that he doesn’t like the look of it. It has scales and teeth and ears that go on for miles. It’s been silent all this time, but it stirs now. “Look. We aren’t some savage animals.”

Sam snorts. “Yeah, right.”

“What?” says Dean.

“Nothing.” 

The red thing clicks its tongue. “It’s like I was saying. We aren’t savages. I believe the poor fellow will at least last until morning, and we should let him. It’s Christmas, after all.”

Holy mother of god. “Christmas!” Sam bolts upright in his bed, and the dinosaurs retreat a little, muttering. Dean almost drops the mug he’s been carrying. “It’s Christmas.”

Dean eyes him with obvious suspicion but walks to Sam’s bed with his cup of herbal tea, completely ignoring the prehistoric beasts that step reluctantly out of his way. Sam scoots over to let him sit and takes the mug from his hands. Dean’s hands, when they touch his, are warm, unlike the cold claws of the dinosaurs. 

“Drink this. Bobby says it should help clear up the poison a little faster.”

The pink diplodocus’s face hovers over Dean’s shoulder. There’s endless pain and sorrow in its eyes. “He’s wrong. Oh, the poison! Oh, how it eats at the little one’s insides!”

Sam blows on the surface of the tea before taking a mouthful. It’s hot and it burns on the way down, leaving behind a faint taste of peppermint and some bitter herbs. “I fucking hate the swamp critters,” he says. 

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Them and their goddamn lures, and the hallucinations. Hey!” He brightens, and the smile on his face is Christmas coming early. Sam smiles back, almost involuntarily. “Hey, so what are you seeing? Clowns or midgets?”

Sam holds the hot liquid in his mouth for a moment, thinking over his answer. His head feels muggy, swimming. He knows that “dinosaurs” would be a bad answer, but he can’t figure out exactly why. “Naked women.” You can never go wrong with naked women.

The dinosaurs look reproachful. Dean looks impressed. “Oh yeah? Sweet, man. What, completely naked?”

Sam eyes the brightly colored reptilian bodies crowding around his bed. Yup, not a strip of clothes on them. “Completely. There’s four of them. One’s sitting on my headboard.”

Dean glances that way, as if he’s hoping to see Sam’s hallucinatory naked woman. The small green velociraptor stares back, invisible to him. Its eye twitches nervously. Sam says, “It’s winking at you. She. I mean, she’s winking at you.” 

“Awesome! Wait, are they hot?”

“They are—” Sam looks around the room, fixing on the lilac diplodocus. “What do you call that color, when something is pink, but just a touch of blue starts to bleed in? I don’t think ‘lilac’ is the word. Shit, Dean, it’s so beautiful.” The diplodocus preens at his words.

“Pink with a touch of…. What? You call that cyanotic, Sammy. Dead is what you call that. Are you seeing naked zombies?” 

The red thing shakes its head, making its ears flop and sway. “I say. And I suggested we let this one live to Christmas.”

“Yes,” says the yellow pterodactyl. “And he mocks our lack of undergarments.” 

Sam slaps a hand over his forehead. “Christmas! Dean, man, I forgot. I didn’t get you anything.”

“Useless waste of a brother that you are,” says the cyanotic diplodocus. 

“Gee,” says Dean. “I’m gonna cry now. Got my brother out of a swamp in one piece, but I didn’t get any presents.” He pauses, thinking over what he just said, and switches to Eric Cartman’s voice. “And what did I tell you, Sam? I told you if we didn’t make it home in time for Christmas I was gonna whoop your ass, didn’t I? Well, now you’re gonna get it, motherfucker.” 

“Stop!” Sam flops back onto the bed and tries to pull the covers over his head, only Dean is sitting on them. “Stop mixing the hallucinations! I can hardly tell my head from my ass, Dean.”

“Sad case,” says the red thing. “Sad, sad case.”

"Fuck off.”

Dean frowns. “Who, me?”

“No, not you.” Sam sighs and closes his eyes, and suddenly, the world is simpler. His head still aches, but it’s a clean ache, uncomplicated. In the pink – cyanotic? – space behind Sam’s closed eyelids there are no dinosaurs, there are no violent colors that bear no description, there is no spinning and no blurring. Sam searches the bedspread by feel until he bumps into Dean’s hand. He squeezes it, and Dean’s fingers are warm when they squeeze back. 

“You okay?” Dean’s wonderful, beloved voice says out of the pink shadow. 

The room is quiet, except for the two of them breathing. No great beasts’ stomping rattles Sam’s head. He’s going to stay here with his eyes closed for a decade. “I’m okay. Hey, merry Christmas. We’ll have a tree or something, once all the—all the women are gone.”

“Okay.” Dean’s other hand touches his hair, and Sam leans into it without thinking. “Okay, dude. I bet you’re full of shit anyway. I bet your naked women are all harpies.”

Sam cracks one eye open and catches some expression on Dean’s face that quickly disappears but makes him feel warm. Above Dean’s head, four solemn reptilian faces gaze down upon him, all teeth and scales and twitching nostrils. “You have no idea.”


End file.
